The Democratic Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren revealed her plan to stop the opioid crisis at rallies in West Virginia and Ohio starting last Wednesday.
What We Know:
- Her opioid crisis proposal “would provide $100 billion for treatment, provider support and funding for research over a decade.”
- Her plan “would focus on the epicenters of the epidemic and provide support to state and nonprofit recovery efforts.” Warren is also receiving help with the bill from Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland.
- The plan would directly go to community leaders in the most struggling cities and towns with resources rather than go through state governments.
- The two deadliest states when it comes to drug overdose according to recent surveys, Warren made sure that the people in Ohio and West Virginia heard her plan directly.
- The city of Kermit, West Virginia where Warren held the rally is widely known as “ground zero of the opioid epidemic” — with reports revealing last year that “a pharmaceutical company had shipped more than 3 million prescription pills over 10 months — about 10,000 a day on average — to a single pharmacy in the town of about 400 people.”
- “Addiction is a medical problem. It needs a medical solution and I’ve got a plan for that,” Warren stated at the Kermit rally last Friday. “We need to hold those executives personally liable…Until there’s some personal responsibility — so long as it’s upside, they can just keep getting richer and richer and all the money is on one side and all the hurt is on the other.”
- With more than 47,000 Americans dying from opioid overdoses in 2017 (according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), Warren is taking a positive step forward in protecting the lives of numerous Americans across the country.
Shoutout to Warren for bringing attention to these serious matters!
